Seth Weeks

Silas Seth Weeks (b. Vermont, Illinois, 8 Sept. 1868 – d. Dec. 1953) was an American composer who played mandolin, violin, banjo and guitar. Although he played many instruments he concentrated professionally on the mandolin. He is considered to be the first African American to play mandolin during its golden period and was considered instrumental in bringing the mandolin to the prominent national standing that it had in the early 1900s. He was the first American known to write a mandolin concerto (in 1900) and led a mandolin and guitar orchestra in Tacoma, Washington.

One of his musical goals was to make the mandolin independent of other instruments, and his playing emphasized the duo style, a way of playing in which the mandolin takes the melody, counter melody and harmonic parts all at once. Properly done, duo style produces what sounds like "two or more instruments" instead of only one. A review of his music by Lyon and Healy of Chicago indicated success, saying that he had included harmony with the melody in most of his arrangements.

He toured America in "circuits" performing and teaching, including in public schools in Chicago, Boston, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. He also performed in New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Rhode Island, and internationally in Montreal, Canada.

He composed and arranged as well, performing his own works on tour. He became prominent enough that he was able to tour Europe (England, France and Russia) and live there periodically. He settled temporarily in Europe, living first in London until World War I, when he returned with his family to New York and played in Jazz bands. When he returned to Europe in 1920, he went to France, playing at the Apollo in Paris. His place of death is unknown, but was reported in the January 9th, 1954 edition of the New York Amsterdam News, on page 9.

He was an admirer of the performances of America's other mandolinists of his day, Samuel Siegel, W. Eugene Page, Valentine Abt, J. W. Marler, W. L. Barney (a Chicago musician in the 1890s through the 1920s), and Fred Lewis.

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